Of course. The Big Bang with its laws is God’s direct creation (or if the Big Bang came out of a wider universe, then that universe).
That’s a very good starting point. We have the big bang with matter, energy and the laws of physics, etc. So, the more consistent proposal would be that God created those elements and the laws and then let everything run.
In fact, that is what you’re saying, I think. But that conflicts with fine-tuning.
Again, fine-tuning is not the product of the laws and matter just running on their own. It’s an intervention into the physical laws and matter.
That’s the remarkable thing about the fine-tuning. If we just look at the big bang and all the matter and laws present there – we would not have fine-tuning.
There is something beyond the laws – an intervention. Physics itself cannot explain the finely-tuned outputs.
If the processes of physical evolution of the universe, chemical evolution towards the origin of life, and biological evolution are perfect, then why should there be evidence for intervention?
This is a much bigger and more complex question. When we talk about the laws being “perfect” – then that is a problem from the Christian view. Since the laws are active in Time and are oriented to Matter – then they cannot be perfect. They exist in a Temporal sphere. This universe and its laws are passing away. The laws have some degree of perfection, but because they are created things, they share the imperfection of this created world.
God did not intend to create anything absolutely perfect within a universe which was designed to exist only temporarily. That is a great argument for why humans get old and begin to feel some hurts … if that didn’t happen, we wouldn’t want to leave this earth for a better existence in heaven for eternity. So, God made the pleasures imperfect. They’re good enough to give us a taste of heaven, but flawed enough that we won’t mistake them for the perfect reward hereafter.
If the laws were absolutely perfect, then even God couldn’t break them – they would be impervious to change or being superseded by God’s action. But the laws are just somewhat consistent – stable-enough for us to make predictions and do science to a reasonable degree.
And why should these processes not perfect?
As above, they’re part of our temporal universe – they’re created. In Thomistic terms, they’re contingent on a universe that is a composite of parts (the perfect is simple and one) and they have unrealized potential, and some laws can actually conflict and be shaped or even, occasionally, neutralized by other laws.
If we’re going to pose evolutionary processes as “laws” then they are very imperfect since they do not follow regularly and consistently from cause to effect. They’re very reliant on chance occurrences and thus lacking order and predictability – and are thus imperfect. The evolutionary process is built on “mistakes” or “copy errors” – and many mutations are very harmful. It’s only the beneficial mutations that “work” for evolution, so it’s a very wasteful process also. Organisms should end up being deformed because of mutations and then some lucky ones might survive, or not. It’s very far from a perfect process and very far from being mathematically elegant. It’s a patchwork of ideas – and that makes it far from a perfect law as we would expect.
Why should God not be so intelligent as to foresee everything in the evolutionary processes and get them right the first time?
This is a point that we keep circling around and I have not been able to come up with the right or best explanation that would clarify things.
The part where we’re disagreeing is bolded in your text.
If we took a very strict mechanistic view (which I know you’re not doing), we would say:
God created the laws.
The laws must be perfect, because God is perfect.
Whatever the laws produce and in whatever way they function must also be perfect.
God created all the laws once and they have run with perfection ever since.
The laws rule all aspects of the physical life of the universe and created human life itself.
Therefore, what we see in the universe and in life on earth and everywhere - is perfection.
If the above concepts were evidently true, then there could be no real debate.
The laws would work with machine-like consistency and everything they produced would be perfect.
But we don’t see that in the universe. The world and life itself is not a machine. It is like a machine in many ways, but one reason life and the universe has beauty and mystery is that it is also like a poem or a work of music or a drama. It’s not just a perfect output of perfect laws.
Now we could say that God designed the laws to create imperfect outputs.
But that brings us back to the question of why God would create imperfect laws.
Again, I believe that God has intervened in history many times and still does so, simply because He wants to, but I do not see why He should be expected to intervene in a perfect process that He created and where He does not have to intervene.
That seems reasonable in many ways, but the classic Catholic view on this is that the universe is suffering from the presence of evil. There was an original harmony, but that has been damaged by the option to sin against the Creator.
No, without fine-tuning there would be no stars, no galaxies, no planets, no nothing.
Yes – so if left just to the natural laws and matter, there would be no planets and no earth. An intervention in the physical realm was necessary, because the laws could not produce the fine-tuning needed.
Good one!